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Ken Will Morton sparks up a "Slow Burn"

To succeed at Americana — or smart country or ragged folk or whatever we’re calling storytelling music from the pop culture margins now — is to walk the line between turn of phrase and cliche. After all, songwriters are still writers, and trite ones get boring.

To keep an audience interested, at least the ones not enamoured by the artist’s smile, a songwriter must churn up fresh words on the regular; spit clever, cutting and funny sentences into a microphone on command.

This rule is especially applicable to Americana, the raw and rootsiest of musical genres, since instrumentation rarely strays from the tropes first written by Cash, Springsteen, Nelson and Earle (to name but a few notables).

Ken Will Morton, who officially releases his newest record “Slow Burn” at Hendershot’s on Friday, gets it. The follow-up to 2011’s “Contenders”, a more acoustic affair, “Slow Burn” is covered up in Springsteenian longing, Westerbergian rock and Earlian hilarity.

But Morton escapes his soundalikes with fresh lyrics.

There are themes you’ve heard here before, but Morton is his own man when it comes to words.

He’s bitter and funny, and “Slow Burn” is all about lovable losers who also meet that description. “Lady Luck” and “No Place for a Sensitive Man” are standouts in the life sucks mode.

So the question now remains when Morton’s day will come. As American Songwriter points out, Morton’s consistent quality output isn’t matched by public adoration. TV shows have picked up his tunes, but he’s not selling out venues. “Slow Burn” stands out among local Americana releases in recent years. The rest of the country should get with it.